were part of the protected heritage of the historic inner city of Paramaribo. According to the CMZ, the law is clear on this matter. “An owner basically can't just decide to clear the fire debris at a protected site especially if the historical building was a protected monument. Before one can clear the fire debris, one must first receive the explicit permission of the CMZ and the Ministry of Edu-cation, Science and Culture. The committee must determine if there are still valuable elements that must be preserved such as original porches, foundations, stoops or unique parts of the interior. This is essential for the potential reconstruction, documentation and preservation of the heritage value.” The CMZ made it clear that the location is also off limits as long as the investigation into the cause of the fire has not been closed. The location is in fact a crime scene and must be visited by officers from the forensics department. If the fire debris is cleared swiftly as is usually the case, valuable information is lost forever. The CMZ urges owners, policymakers and emergency services to coor-dinate their operations after a fire in the historic inner city of Paramaribo in order to protect the ar-chitectural history from being lost forever. The owners of the historic buildings that went up in flames last week are being advised to send a letter to the Ministry of Education, Science and Cul-ture to ask for permission to clear the fire debris. Meanwhile the CMZ can visit the scene to deter-mine if there is anything left that is still of significant value.